John feebly raised and held out a bandaged hand, of which the end of three fingers only were visible. Colonel Tempest, whose own feelings were invariably too deep to admit of his remembering those of others, pressed it spasmodically in his.
"It goes to my heart to see you like this, John," he said with a break in his voice.
John withdrew his hand. His face twitched a little, and he bit his lip, but in a few moments he spoke again firmly enough.
"It is very good of you to come. Now that I have got round the corner, I shall be about again in no time."
"Yes, yes," said Colonel Tempest, as if reassuring himself. "You will be all right again soon."
"You look knocked up," said John, considering him attentively with his dark earnest gaze.
"Do I?" said Colonel Tempest. "I dare say I do. Yes, people may not notice it as a rule. I keep things to myself, always have done all my life, but—it will drag me into my grave if it goes on much longer, I know that."
"If what goes on?"
It is all very well for a nervous rider to look boldly at a hedge two fields away, but when he comes up with it, and feels his horse quicken his pace under him, he begins to wonder what the landing on the invisible other side will be like. There was a long silence, broken only by Lindo, John's Spanish poodle, who, ensconced in an armchair by the bedside, was putting an aristocratic and extended hind leg through an afternoon toilet by means of searching and sustained suction.
"I don't suppose there is a more wretched man in the world than I am, John," said Colonel Tempest at last.